It’s a question that seems to come up pretty regularly. “Am I doing enough? My long rides don’t seem long enough!” These statements and questions mainly come from my 35+ male age groupers. There are many factors that make up the answer to this question, such as the background of the athlete, the time its been since they did their last long event and what part of the training cycle they are in.

These athletes are pretty motivated to set personal bests, and that’s normal and healthy. But the problem is, most of these older guys have been around a while in this sport and have come from the ‘big miles’ training philosophy.

Now there are also two types of these older triathletes. The ones who have trained long slow distance for years and only have one gear… yep they can go long and – you guessed it — slow! They have literally trained the speed and usually strength right out of themselves. Then there are the ones who go long but also train at a higher intensity, they tend to train too hard and too long. These guys most likely got some great wins on the board early on, but then they just can’t seem to put a good race together anymore. They may kill it in training, but come race day they seriously under perform. This is because they have created a huge amount of aerobic fatigue and have nothing to give when it matters most. The taper just shuts all systems down and the body goes into a deep recovery mode.

The questions and statements keep coming up because this ‘gotta go long, put in the long miles, smash myself’ mentality is still very much entrenched into their psychology. This mentality is what the coaches at ironguides are chipping away at! We’re slowly changing this mind-set and long held belief and as a result we’re seeing healthy athletes consistently setting PB’s week in week out.

We could probably answer the above question quickly when it’s asked differently. How much is too much? Too much is when you are so aerobically whacked that you can’t train at a great enough quality (in any session) to elicit a positive adaptation. You can’t absorb the training load and the overall training consistency is jeopardized.

However I’ll aim to answer the question a little more deeply.

The reason why we don’t need to do lots of volume is because the majority of these athletes have years and years of aerobic volume underneath them (it’s in the bank). So if we follow the core structure of a Method training plan, which is a year round focus on skills, strength development, speed acquisition, and race pace tolerance. Guess what happens? We build endurance as a by-product anyway, while getting stronger, faster and better able to tolerate the demands of long course racing. Most athletes typically forget that since this sport is SWIMBIKERUN we accumulate volume over the training week and months anyway. Yes the sum is greater than its parts!

What we typically see with the ‘too much volume’ approach is athletes that have very inconsistent training weeks. This is because they are so tired they can’t face some of their weekday sessions, however, they go and repeat the same massive sessions on the weekend because by then they feel guilty about the missed sessions. They aim to ‘make up’ for this loss. You can’t make it up, you just dig the hole even deeper.

When it comes to racing, how many of your training buddies are just looking to get their race over and done with? There is no real excitement leading into it. They are just mentally fried and this is unfortunate in a sport that should be creating positive experiences and be enjoyable. You may have been there yourself!

When we flip this around, focusing on the ‘core structure’ as mentioned above, we find not only do we have healthy athletes but ones that stay mentally and emotionally fresh all year round. They are motivated to hit the longer sessions when it really matters.. when is this? Late in the training cycle for your Ironman preparation, specifically 6-8 weeks out from race day. If you have done a long course race in your preparation, it’s even less.

It is said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result! Isn’t it time for a change? We think so.

Enjoy your training

Kristian

Mark Jansen continues to show how its done at the Desaru Half Ironman this weekend with a 2nd place outright, an age group 35-39 win and massive 17 minute PB giving him a time of 4:12 minutes! Mark is a partner at PWC in Singapore and part of his race report run down stated “Morning – bad sleep this week as long hours at work, big pitch was due on Fri, plenty of stress. Race night got to bed ok (though late) then roommate started snoring from 4-6. Ended up with 5hrs sleep feeling like s#*t…”. Mark just shows what can be done even holding down crazy work hours! Congrats Mark and looking forward to seeing you in Kona!

Wim Timmermans is another athlete that holds down a job and travel schedule that would make most people never think of doing Ironman racing. Yet 6 weeks after racing IM Japan, Wim backed up in Sweden at the Kalmar Triathlon (Iron distance race) and knocked out a PB with a 10:45. Awesome work Wim.

Over to the US of A and Bevan Colless under the great guidance of Coach Alun (Woody) Woodward had a smashing first Iron distance race and just missing the magical sub 10 mark by 51 seconds. Bevan went 10:00:51. You can read about Bevans race here http://bcolless.blogspot.com/2009/08/vineman-race-report.html

In the UK Mark Whittaker and Stephen Elliot raced at the new IMUK home of Bolton. By reports the transitions were a little muddy but that didnt stop the guys having great days. From the times you know its a tough course. Only the overall male winner broke 5 hours on the bike and just! Mark had a very solid day with a sub 11 result of 10:57 and 15th in hid age group, while Stephen Elliot had this to say “Just to let you know I had a great day yesterday out on the super tough IM UK course!” and “The training and race approach helped me feel great on the course and I had my best Ironman day ever! Who can ask for more?”

Congratulations to all on there superb efforts over the weekend… What’s in store for ironguides athletes at next weekends races?

Kristian

Didn’t quite make the time you wanted in your last race? The good news is that this setback can help actually help you to improve your time.

Each triathlon is a learning experience, a step toward your best race ever. Even when you have a good race, you need to mentally run through each aspect to see what you did right, what worked to use again for the future.

Have you heard the expression, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”? This simple statement bears a lot of truth. Thomas Edison failed at making an electric light bulb over 1,000 times. That is 1,000 failures to some, but to Mr. Edison it was something quite different. When asked about the 1,000 failures, he replied, “I now know 1,000 ways to not make an electric light bulb.” How many people would have just given up and quit after just a few failed attempts? 500 failed attempts would have left most of us banging our head against a wall. Thomas Edison took these setbacks and learned from each and every one of them. He eventually figured it out and none of us have to read by candlelight at night now.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results! Learn from your mistakes. Most triathletes know the events that led up to a disappointing performance in a race or training. Do an honest evaluation of your performance. Did you have a plan? Did you stick to it?

How many times have you not taken in enough nutrition because you felt “great” during the ride, only to bonk later? If the answer is more than one, you haven’t learned from your mistakes.

Have you ever gone out entirely too fast on the run and then ended up doing the “IM Shuffle” all the way to the finish? If you have done this more than once, you aren’t taking the lessons that you learned and earned the hard way.

The key is to correctly identify what led up to poor performance and then avoid making the same mistakes again. You will grow as an athlete when you learn from past mistakes. Everyone makes them, champions don’t repeat them!

Turn setbacks into positives. Injuries and how we deal with them will make a difference on your triathlon season and career. Stress Fracture? If you are in an aircast, you have a lot of time to work on your swim! Who couldn’t use a month of intense swim training? This a a perfect opportunity to do something that doesn’t usually happen. Focus on one aspect of triathlon. Your swim will improve, you won’t lose fitness and best of all your injury has a chance to heal.

Growth comes from being able to take the good along with the bad. Remember that you are the one who ultimately decides if you are going to have a basket of lemons or a glass of lemonade!

Coach Eric

Unfortunately most athletes take it as a time to pretty much do nothing… and it is this that is probably the worst thing you can do to your body.

Sure it needs rest but it needs the right type of rest.

Time and time again I see athletes get sick a week after Ironman and 4-5 weeks later they start training again and get injured! This is because they first completely shut down their hormonal system and their immune system is weak right now and muscles that are used to movement, blood and oxygen flow start to bind up and lose elasticity and range of motion (ROM). Then when these athletes start to train again, the muscles are so restricted and get forced through a ROM they don’t really have the ability to go through, the athlete pulls up injured.

The aim of a well structured post Ironman recovery plan is to ease you out of the bigger training load while allowing full recovery of your aerobic system, musculoskeletal system, immune system and also your mind!

What you want to first do is allow the body to ease out of specific training and not abruptly stop and then maintain some of those hard fought and won skill and fitness gains.

So in the week post Ironman, which is where Charlotte and I found ourselves right now, we take the time to wind down some and enjoy the extra rest.

Here is a basic post week Ironman recovery schedule. What you do over the next few weeks really depends on what is coming up in the future. Since most age groupers don’t put 2 Ironmans that close together you have more time leniency in what you do. If you do have more races coming up then the specifics of what to do get a little harder.

The day after the race is pretty much do nothing but eat a BIG breakfast and catch up with fellow athletes… It’s a good idea to keep re-hydrating though. If you do any movement today, I would suggest walking in waist deep cold water or some light swimming.

Day 2 most people travel and is usually another OFF day but if you have the chance a simple set of 20×100 easy with some kicking is great.

Day 3 either do the 20×100 if you didn’t the day before or ride your bike for an easy 30-40min’s, just light spinning.

Day 4 I like to go for a good walk, especially along the beach or out in the country if possible. If those options aren’t available then just get outside and walk for 30-40mins.

Day 5 Another swim here. Can be the same 20×100 easy with some kicking and even some 10-15m sprints to help shake the fatigue a little.

Day 6 Here you could go for up to a 2 hour easy ride. Definitely no need to go longer unless its a fully social ‘coffee shop’ ride and even then 3 hours should be max.

Day 7 If you’re up to it you can run for 30mins easy or just go for another swim.

Week 2 following Ironman is when you can just do whatever you like. Still aim to keep moving ever other day and don’t be afraid to do some non SBR activities! After that it is time to get back into training. A thing to remember here is that training should be a year round approach. You don’t need to ever be doing excessive amounts of volume. Just enough to develop skills, strength and speed to maintain those skills and fitness gains.

At ironguides we have a specific Post Ironman Training Plan which can be found here

Simplicity Discovery Growth

Kristian

So how does it feel?

Lately I have been mulling over the question of what we are chasing? Many people believe they are chasing the outcome, and there was a time when I agreed. My thoughts have led to conversations with my wife, pro triathlete Charlotte Paul and some of my athletes and friends. Funnily enough, as is usually the case, things seem to ‘pop up’ that give you further insights into the questions you are asking. For instance, I needed a divergence from my never ending list of business and personal development books, which led me to finally get stuck into a book that has been on the bookshelf for a number of years… “Scar Tissue” by Anthony Kelidis (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) which definitely answers the question of “what are we chasing?”

The flight over to Germany also added in the variation as Emirates has a pretty in-depth entertainment system where I had plenty of options, and plenty of time-over 21 hours of flying! The stand out two were a short film about snowboarding superstar Shaun White, a doco on some young kids getting the chance to race in the Trans Pacific Yacht Race, a film on Parkour and finally a surfing flick. I chose these because each had some form of interest to me but what I didnt know at the time was that each would provide their own answers to chasing the feeling and each confirmed my thoughts.

So if we aren’t chasing the outcome what is it we are really chasing? It’s the FEELINGS associated with the experience.  When you focus on something important to you, say a goal and you start getting clarity on that goal, more than likely you can see it… and you start getting a taste of what it feels like… you get goose bumps, maybe shivers up your spine… just for that fleeting moment… Charlotte uses the feelings that she has bottled up from her winning experiences and draws upon those as motivation. She is chasing that feeling of running down the finish chute in first place, the unbelievable natural high…

Kelidis exposes in “Scar Tissue” it’s not really the drugs but the feeling… the addiction to the first time high that he was chasing.

White reveals it in a more ‘healthy’ way when competing in the X-Games but this time in vert skateboarding… in snowboarding White is the man, everyone knows him… In the skateboarding world, sure he is known, but not like the superstars. White wanted to earn the rite of passage to be riding with the big dogs in the X-Games. He wanted to win his first big skateboarding event.. to recapture that ‘first time feeling of winning a big event.. White said this would mean as much as winning his Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe. White is also the quintessential go getter, while at the same time wanting to give his fans an unforgettable experience… he doesnt want to let them down, which is part of the feeling he is chasing. For example he will see his score from the superpipe and go “I’ve got more to give than that – I can do better”.

Surfer Rob Machado says “it’s not about winning or losing it’s how you play, it’s not the top of the podium that counts its the ride to get there”.

When you strip down the layers… everything begins with focus. Focus on getting a clear picture of what it looks like to be performing perfectly, overcome all of the little hurdles that will pop up in your mind and focus on what the experience you are after feels like… enjoy the shivers and goose bumps as focusing on the feelings will provide better decisions and actions which will lead to desired outcomes- which give the feelings we are chasing.

The funny thing is, as Rob Machado says “the tangible rewards for the effort are never as rewarding as the effort itself…” So I ask you again…. How does it FEEL seeing yourself achieve those lofty goals?

Go on the chase… it feels good and as we say at ironguides “Life is a qualitative experience, not a quantitative one”

Kristian

How often will a young child want the same book read or watch the same movie and why do they do this?

I wanted to provide a little insight into one of the practical aspects of this little thing (training philosophy) we call The Method. Why do we play the training plan again and again, in other words why do we REPEAT?

We realize that repetition is a vitally important ingredient for developing skills, and for learning or memorizing certain things but we neglect to go deep enough to see what is does for our understanding.

Back to the children, they always want MORE because each time they discover — key word: discover — more. When we repeat a training plan over and over, it’s amazing what you can find, learn and feel when you decide to look closely enough.

The first handful of times you repeat a session/plan, you are only just getting into the routine or swing of things but even then, you’ll start to notice little subtleties in the impact from other things.

If you explore deeply (repeat over and over), rather then widely (changing often), you’ll develop a greater understanding of your training. With the sessions being KNOWN, you can start to see the impact from other sessions. Did dinner last night help or hinder? How much sleep did I get? How was my attitude going into the session?  What are my stress levels like? And any number of other factors that present you with huge learning opportunities to continually refine your approach so that you get more and more out of each time you repeat that session.

There are some typical stages that an athlete goes through when following a repetitive approach:

1. First there is curiosity and excitement, as it’s new and different to what you have done before and you’re eager to find out how it’s going to make you improve.

2. The secrets of the repetitive nature, start to show up. Increased consistency, you feel better, recover better, you have better time management and you see improvements.

3. The curiosity and interest may begin to fade (even though you’re still improving). This is caused mainly by the big misconception in our sport that training plans need to constantly change to surprise or shock our bodies into further progression. That’s just plain B.S!

4. Keep going anyway – find that self discipline and don’t be eager to change. This is where you catapult yourself to that next level. This is where you need to think long term, because in the longer term it will pay off.

5. Hooked – you have got over the eagerness to change as your further exploration and understanding starts to reveal more and more secrets, you become more skilled, you learn how eke more out of each session and make it more useful.

How to make repetition work

Athletes outsource coaches to help them achieve their goals, to learn more and to get better. Repetition needs to be matched with strong intention — keyword: intention — when you have strong intention to get better, learn more and achieve those goals, these things will gradually happen.

Without intention you’ll find yourself getting bored, gaps will start to appear, mistakes will be made and funnily enough REPEATED!

The final question is not can you make repetition work for you but WILL you work it to let it work it’s magic on you?

Be your Best!

Kristian

IM China turned out to be a pure race of survival with even the mens champion reduced to a walk over the final kilometres! The mercury hit 45 degrees but it wasn’t just the heat. First athletes battled a 2km/hr current, then wind and heat on the bike followed by the scorching temps on the run.

Charlotte Paul just seemed to dominate in these conditions, citing a change in outlook during the race to a thought process recently learned from Michael Phelps book ‘No Limits’ which was – what’s important now! Those three words kept Charlotte focused on the necessity of hydration and keeping cool. This strategy not only helped her to a second Ironman win, but one where she was 5th across the line and ran the fastest split of the day -overall!

Now the times werent fast, but put into perspective when Ironman World Champion Chris McCormack said “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done” after winning thew 70.3 and his run split was a 1:27! You know times mean nothing…

For a full report on ironguides athletes click here and for Charlottes report click here

Kristian

Ironman Australia:

Race week at Ironman Australia had rumours flying around about a potential duathlon, or cancelled swim due to the flood conditions on the mid north coast of NSW. These were just the typical race week rumours that fly around. IMG not deterred put on a great event. Around 3 am race morning the rain was coming down hard but cleared by the time athletes arrived to get body marked and set up in T1. The age group gun went 35mins after the pros and then ironguides athletes went out and did what they do best… setting personal bests

2 weeks after setting his new PB at the 70.3 distance in Singapore, Grant O’Halloran went 12h12 for a 1h30 PB since IMWA in December 2009. Note that Grant started working with ironguides in January 2009. That would have been a good performance already, but on the top of this, Grant had a crash on the second lap of the bike descending at 50k/h, went to the medical tent twice to get strap for blisters and made the local newspaper today for this “long day out”. Whew. So much for an ironman!

Chris Dimtrieff after a bad swim and solo bike got off and ran a PB IM marathon and 2nd fastest run of the day (2:50) to get himself into 9th overall from a LONG way back. Great to see that Chris didn’t let the non optimal swim completely ruin his day. He said when he got onto the run his legs just wanted to go… and go they did!

Kevin Lucas had the PB of the day! 2nd IM and 6 months of ironguides coaching … 9:57:07 taking a massive 1h 35min off his previous best time…

Anthony Osment 14min PB from IM WA in December. Going 10:02 in IM Australia and just missing going sub 10 (seems he lost 8mins in nature break stops on the bike). Oz took 28 minutes off his bike split and ~ 30mins off his run split from the same course as last year!

Marie Doke also ~ 14min PB from same course as last year and went 11:16 and 2nd in her AG. Marie didnt take up her Kona spot though.

Kevin Bloor, what can we say here… Kevin late last year wanted to do a triathlon, so he signed up for the Noosa Tri (Olympic Distance) in November 08, loved it and 1 week later did his first Half Ironman… From there his sights were set on IM Australia some 4 months later. Kevin went a stunning 11:36 in his first ever Ironman, I might add Kevin is 55! He absolutely loved it… show’s anything IS possible.

Judith Golledge unfortunately crashed hard on a steep section of road due to some paint on the road that got real slippery when the rain started to come down. Judith tried to continue on but eventually had to call it a day. Judith will now recover and is looking forward to training for 70.3 world Champs later in the year.

Ben Atkins who bought a 20 week IM plan – not sure how big a PB but I know it was pretty decent.. Unfortunately the poor bugger went 10:00:08 — just couldnt run hard enough down the chute.

And finally Simon Webber knocked up his 10th IM Australia to become an IM Australia Legend in 11:50.

Congrats to all.

Alwyn was answering the question: Is losing weight easy? His answer was the title above. It’s SIMPLE, but not easy.

That got me thinking about triathlon; Is getting great results in triathlon easy? You may guess the answer because of the title and that is, yes it’s pretty simple, but it’s not easy.

When it comes to performance enhancement we all pretty much know what to do, and how to do it. But what trips most of us up is putting it all together. Lets have a look at some of the most important but simple things.

Nutrition: Undeniably, the less weight you have to carry around, the faster you are going to go. Period. All the high tech gadgetry in the world is not going to help you if you’re lugging around excess body fat. If you fill your diet with lean proteins, fruit, vegetables, good fats and only consume sugars and starches during and immediately after training, it’s going to have a profound impact on your health and triathlon results. That’s fairly simple, but it’s not easy!

Body maintenance: I have written about this in the past, as I believe this is the most underutilized area of improvement. There are enormous benefits to sleeping 7-8 hours a night and looking after your muscle tissue health through regular massage or self massage with TP Therapy Tools. Again simple, but not easy.

Training: Ah yes, you need to train to get results. That’s simple right? Yes it is but definitely not easy when you’re and stressed and tired from work and there’s family and social commitments, not to mention the little voice in your head saying “it’s not going to hurt to just miss one session”. As coach Vinnie stated in a recent blog post “After coaching for a number of years, it is clear that if the athlete has done the training, he/she will perform well at a race. Period. End of story.”

Turning down the noise: There’s tons of it out there, from all the adverts for the latest and greatest gadgets, what your mates are doing, what the forum guru is telling you, and even more so, the paralysis of understanding what the data spitting out from your heart rate, power, GPS gizmos are telling you. The idea of turning down the noise is really simple. Shutting it out and turning it off may not be that easy, however it is well worth it when you do. It clears your mind and allows you to focus on the training when you do.

Consistently putting all the above together is what it WILL take to start seeing greater improvement in your triathlon results.

It’s fairly SIMPLE but it’s NOT always EASY. It’s going to take discipline, it’s going to take a great deal of focus, it’s takes some will power and it certainly takes effort.

But when it’s all said and done, the PROCESS is SIMPLE.

So go on and be the BEST you can be.

Kristian

It all started in IM Malaysia dubbed the “Toughest Show on Earth” with three ironguides athletes posting huge PB’s while also finishing in the top 20 overall! The following weekend again ironguides athletes backed up the results from Malaysia with more PB’s, one of those athletes posted the 3rd fastest time ever in his AG! We also had a 3rd overall and grabbed more Kona spots.

We are looking forward to more great results this weekend in Singapore 70.3 and then Ironman Australia the following weekend.

If your serious about getting results, and even getting one of those coveted spots to Kona then sign up for one of our coaching options or see our downloadable training plans that one athlete went 8:28 after following for 12 weeks!

We don’t joke when we say  Your Best is our Buisness!

Kristian